There is a huge interest in sport memorabilia, and sports-related items include signed commemorative photos, baseballs, footballs, basketballs, pucks and jerseys. A Google search of companies hawking these items comes up with almost 5 million businesses!

Some of the items on offer cost thousands of dollars.

Where there are so many eager and gullible customers, fraud is sure to appear. A Sand Diego federal judge who recently sentenced several sports autograph forgers to prison said, "Life, liberty and the pursuit of the national pastime, has been undone". The prosecution stemmed from an FBI investigation called Operation Bullpen, which closed down a professional criminal organization that forged and sold bogus autographs. 60 search warrants were served, more than 2 dozen people arrested, and a warehouse with 10 million dollars worth of forged merchandise was seized. The ring leaders received 3 years in prison and forfeiture or assets to the IRS. Both current and "vintage" items were involved. Any sports fan who has a signed souvenir may now want to question its authenticity. Phil Halpren, the assistant U.S. attorney who worked to prosecute the forgers stated that fraud is so pervasive in the sports memorabilia market that unless you personally see an item being signed by the athlete, odds are greater than fifty percent that it is fake. The most athletes most well-known the the public are popular with forgers, too. Halpren said, "If you are looking at a Mark McGuire signature, it's alost a guarantee, 99.9 percent it is a forgery." Certificates of authenticity can be fabricated just as easily as the collectible item they supposedly validate, so this is no protection.

Vendors are fighting back in an effort to maintain the integrity of the market. Disney, which owns ESPN, will begin next year to auction signed sports memorabilia online. Disney says it will authenticate the signatures with holograms encrypted with the item's identifying information and package seals, videotaping the entire process.

Sophisticated forgers can even produce holographic seals which appear, on casual inspection, to be real. However most forgers are amateurs, and the more sophisticated the anti-forgery system, the less likely criminals are to attempt to copy it.

Baseball and football are most popular in America, but a few famous hockey players such as Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Orr are popular targets for forgery as well.

With all the items available, both off and on the internet, fans can avoid a lot of fraud by using common sense. For example, a baseball autographed by Babe Ruth selling for $500 is obviously a fake, because such a price is unbelievably low, too low for real market conditons. Also, it pays to know a little bit about the development of baseballs and pens. If you see baseballs supposedly signed in the '20s and '30s with Sharpie pens, these are obviously fake, because these pens were not invented yet in that era. To quote Phil Halpren : "I have seen Babe Ruth balls signed on a Bobby Brown American League President ball. So, you know, he was president in the early '80s. That's impossible to have been done. But someone did it."

So, while it's enjoyable to own a peice of sports history, the motto to follow is : buyer beware. Unless you are a professional trader who knows how to authenticate merchandise, don't buy an item strictly for its potential resale value, because you may be disappointed by what you eventually get for it. Buy an item you personally like and intend to keep, and don't spend thousands of dollars. This ensures that you will be happy when you look at your purchase, without the lingering doubt that you have wasted a large sum of money on something of dubious value.

On my first visit to Denmark, I fell in love with the country and the city of Copenhagen. Contrary to my guidebook, you could see elephants and experience ice hockey in the dead of summer.

The Hanson Brothers

Upon arriving in Copenhagen, I was burned out from backpacking and looking forward to a good nap. I was traveling with three other Americans and we became distressed as each subsequent hostel told us all beds were sold. After asking around [okay, we were in a bar], we were given a lift by a local to a hotel guaranteed to have space.

I could only sigh as we pulled up to the ice rink for the local professional team. Since we were high and dry, we entered and booked our beds. Left face off dot. Yes, our beds were arranged around the left face off dot. To make a little extra money during the summer, the rink melted the ice and set up beds everywhere. The scene can best be described as a giant collection of cubicles in an office with beds instead of desks. It was cheap, dry and had a communal feel since you could hear everything. If youve seen the movie Slap Shot, it was like living with a few hundred Hanson Brothers.

Danish Elephants

Okay, there was one Danish elephant. Okay, it was made out of wood. And poured beer. From its trunk. Ah, let me start at the beginning.

Having been befriended by some local Danes, we were asked in hushed tones if we would like to see real Danish elephants. Yes, wed be able to touch them. No, they werent dangerous. We could even ride them? Wow, this was going to be a great entry in my Nomad travel journal.

We were picked up at the ice rink that evening and taken to the center of town. We stopped in front of what looked like all the world to be a small tavern. This is where they keep the elephants? We walked into a small tavern witha life-sized, wood elephant.

As it turned out, the elephant was the worlds biggest and best beer dispensing unit. Put you glass under the trunk and pull down on a tusk to dispense your beverage of choice. Each tusk provided a different beer, but I investigated the mechanism far to often that evening and dont recall the brands. Unfortunately, there didnt appear to be an aspirin elephant anywhere to be seen the next morning.

If youre going to be visiting Copenhagen and dont give a hoot about privacy, the ice rink hotel cant be beat for price and a communal spirit. Well, maybe by the Danish elephants, but dont tell anyone I told you.

Which is the best Detroit Piston team of all time? I have pondered this question deeply and have engaged in many a bar stool debate. As a lifelong sports fan and hoops junkie, I find asking which the best team is in the history of a storied franchise like the Detroit Pistons is big part of what makes sports fun. For the purposes of this particular debate, there are really only two options by anyones standards: the championship Detroit Piston teams of the mid to late 80s and the more recent teams of 2004 and 2005 who went to two finals series and won a championship.

The arguments for the Detroit Piston teams of the late 80s are certainly easy to make. Those Bad Boys teams were trend setters. The 80s were a time of high scoring offenses and soft defenses. Scores routinely made it into triple digits as teams like the Lakers, Celtics, Rockets, and Sixers ruled the league. Then the Detroit Pistons came along with their tough, hard nosed, no easy baskets style of defense. They gave way to teams like the Bulls and Knicks who adopted similar defensive philosophies. Setting such a trend in a league like the NBA is certainly cause for consideration of greatness.

The Bad Boys Piston teams also had names and recognizable talent that the later championship teams would lack. Names like Isaiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, and Bill Laimbeer are still known throughout the league. They are the greats of Detroit Piston basketball and to some degree of the NBA. Not only were these names recognizable and historic in league and team history, but also they were names of winners. Obviously the more recent teams are winners, but they have yet to combine the historical names, the winning, and the stamp on history that comes along with setting a trend.

There is, however, an argument to be made for the Detroit Piston teams of the early 2000s. Those teams have represented that city of Detroit with their blue collar methods. The collection of cast-offs from around the NBA shows that a true team can be the personification of the idea that the whole can be more than the sum of its parts. You could also make the argument that when it is all said and done, the names Billups, Wallace, Wallace, and Prince will be just as well known as those of the Bad Boys. With one championship ring, another appearance in the finals, and a quick start to the 2005-2006 season, the modern Detroit Piston team may even end up with more championships to their credit. And in the end, isnt it all about rings when it comes to the legacy of any great team?

When it comes to great basketball franchises, the Detroit Pistons may not be the first name to roll of the tongue, but they certainly will come in at some point. With at least two great runs in the history of the franchise, the argument over who is the best Detroit Piston team is one that may end in a draw. However, it is those great debates that will help both Detroit Piston teams to maintain their place in the mindset of Piston fans as well as basketball fans for years to come.